Oil has been routinely recovered from oil-bearing plants for thousands of years. A large variety of plants produce sufficient quantities of oil that can be processed into edible or industrial products.
Oil from oil-bearing plants is typically extracted by solvents. Solvent extraction is a mass-transfer process in which one or more materials are transported from a mixture to a solvent phase, resulting in their separation from the mixture. Various organic solvents have been used for commercial extraction. However, there still exists a need in developing a cost-effective solvent and environment-friendly extraction process for recovering oil from oil-bearing plants.